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Rainy night on Wed 23 May
Well, we were just about to leave Bill's place to come in to the City for a skate when we both got phone calls. Mine was from Ben who told me that it was pouring in town and there was lightning and thunder everywhere and Bill had a call from David who said the same and that he was going home. Ben said if we still wanted to venture out we could bring the grind poles and do some grinding in his buildings undercover car park. So the poles went into the van and off we set.

When we were driving up Macquarie St everywhere was soaking wet but the rain had stopped. Bill & I thought we could walk around the City and try to grind any surface that looked inviting. It was about this time that Ben rang again to find out what we had planned so we told him we would pick him up & tour the City.

We started at the place I first learnt to grind and that was a garden edge at the Water Board building. We then broke with tradition and stopped in the Pub for a quick drink (and I do mean quick). We then left and started to walk up Castlereagh St where we noticed that the Pacific Power building had a fairly steep car park ramp with a, nicely wet, gutter edge all the way to the bottom. After about three quarters of an hour there we were grinding at least 2 metres down in one go so the challenge had lessened and it was time to move on.

We thought we would just walk toward the Quay and grind any steps or rails we saw on the way and then (I think it was) Ben suggested we try Hyde Park. Well, wasn't that a great idea !

We walked up behind St James Station and around the, now deserted, Chess area there were a whole lot of different grades of steps. And then we saw IT !

IT was a wheelchair access ramp about 7-10 Metres long with a great, and not too steep, handrail. What made this handrail soo good was that there was a wall on the step side and the step up at the top was a bit over half a metre and at the bottom it was only about 20 centimetres. How easy was that for getting on and off !

We spent absolutely ages stepping on, jumping on and falling off that rail that nearly gave us as good a workout as a David skate. Bill ventured a bit further into the Park where there were a couple of wooden benches side by side. Next thing Bill was jumping on and grinding this garden wall that was about one and a half metres off the ground ! We spent a while trying out all the garden walls in this little quadrangle but the nice wet rail was still our favourite. So back we went.

The railing had dried out a little now from our use but it was still great fun and the sliding was a little slower. We stayed there for quite a while nearly grinding from top to bottom and then we noticed it was a quarter to 12 so time to move on. As we were WALKING out of Hyde Park a "Law Enforcement Officer's" car hove into view and cruised slowly behind us watching, but unable to accuse us of anything as we were just walking through. The only thing was that we had to WALK back to the van.

Wow that was another great experience on the SOAP Shoes (still doesn't beat skating) and now I dont have a fear of wet Wednesday nights.

Sydney Bladers is not run by any one, no one owns it, no one is responsible for it, this web site is designed to help this sorry bunch of bladers who meet up every Wednesday night for a great time, no meeting times are planed by anyone, it is just a freak coincidence that up to 70 people meet up at the same place and time every Wednesday night and head off on the same direction some where around the city for 2 hours.

The web designer of this site (me) is not responsible if you do something stupid because of this web site, if you do I will plead insanity, I have many people on the city skate that will hold proof to this in court if need be. You read this information at your own risk, if you do something stupid then you are an idiot and don't come crying to me about it. If you take this disclaimer too seriously or think its stupid then you have no scene of humor and are probably a very boring person.